TRE TORRI 2007 PRESENTED BY CORRADO CROCERI

Presenting “TRE TORRI” always represents a time for reflection for me. The aim of this 23rd effort of TRE TORRI is to make it known that our discipline has profound roots and it collects together important values which travel far beyond the sporting dimension.

I firmly believe with my collaborators that the time to let the young “judokas”, the Coaches, the Managing Executives and Directors know that Judo, through such events as “Tre Torri”, finds its greatest expression in sporting activity, however it also represents a moment of growth where sporting competition becomes an expression of a precise and correct moral and ethical education and therefore, the style, the behaviour which reflects the contents, is of fundamental value.

The “TRE TORRI” competition is more or less fully grown now., this being the 23rd edition, this is the year of the Finals, this September there will be the World Championships in Brazil. Each national team is currently busy getting ready for this important date, but more so for 2008, the most important sporting event of all those Olympic disciplines, the Beijing Games, known all over the world as BEIJING 2008.

As is always the case in an Olympic and pre-Olympic year, the “TRE TORRI” expresses the maximum of its potential: we see it from the interest that this event arouses, an excellent indicator of so great an interest is our new website: www.judotretorri.com, which in its present form is greatly visited on all continents, and this is undoubtedly something satisfying to us.

BEIJING 2008 will be a very special Games for China, which has already begun to rise up to the level of a great world power; the press, has already written much, it appears that the next Beijing games will be the most outstanding ones of this first century of the second millennium.

The Chinese have spared no expense in supplying this Olympic event with futuristic-type facilities and infrastructure; the prestige of a nation is at stake here. One which is frenetically running towards a future that is forever growing, in every sense of the word, technology speaking, politically speaking and economically speaking.

China is nearby and we, judo practitioners, should be up to all expectations so that we give the world a picture of our seriousness and discipline, which at the same time provides spectacle and is rich in technical content; but especially it is a discipline that arouses interest for its educational worth.

I would also finally like to point out the importance that the style of expression in terms of understanding everything that takes place on the “tatami” (Judo mat), making judo understandable, and keeping it in its sense of Olympic sport, making it understandable to an audience of uninitiated people allows us to reach out to them more.

The “TRE TORRI” obviously feels the effect of this influence, it is my wish to do it so that this event is not merely sport and spectacle, but also an opportunity to learn to know ourselves, as well as accept all our differences, a further opportunity to improve the image of our discipline and especially ourselves.